


About a boy

by epersonae



Series: Aftermath [15]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angus is Baby Magcretia, F/M, Post-Canon, Reconciliation, Serious conversation with a dumb Monster Factory joke embedded in it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-30 01:01:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15085592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epersonae/pseuds/epersonae
Summary: Magnus has questions. Lucretia attempts to provide answers. Trouble is courted even as they begin anew.





	About a boy

**Author's Note:**

> I've been in this mood of filling in some of the gaps in this series, and one of them is definitely this conversation, which I started a draft of months ago, threw that one out, and wrote this instead.

The next time Magnus meets Lucretia, it's in Neverwinter, not her apartment, but a little cafe nearby. She says she doesn't have much of a kitchen either there or at her apartment on the moon, and if they go to the moon base, they'd have to eat in the cafeteria, and she's sure he doesn't want that. (He almost suggests it anyway.) 

The waitstaff seem to know her: already she has a favorite order, a usual drink, a preferred table. In the back, of course, with an eye over the whole cafe. She keeps a cautious distance as they walk in together, keeps her hands carefully to her side of the table.

She asks him questions: how is he doing? A little bored, sometimes, despite the dogs and the carpentry and the occasional side gig with the boys. He gives a self-deprecating laugh;  _ you’d think I was too old to be like that _ , and she laughs. He says something offhand about Angus, and she asks  _ how is that going  _ then stops abruptly. 

She’s frozen, her eyes wide and almost glassy, her mouth set in a line. She swallows heavily. He starts to reach towards her, but of course that’s when the food arrives.

They eat in silence for a little while, just the clink of forks on plates, the soft sounds of other people around them. 

“I’m not mad,” he says finally. “I just…” He takes a breath; she sets down her silverware, twists her hands together. “What happened, Luce?”

She looks down at her plate.

“McDonald was the first one, the first person I inoculated. He helped me… He helped when I retrieved the staff, and— He was a collector, you know, he had amazing records, once he could—” She chuckles ruefully. “Once he was able to  _ see _ them again. And then….” Another sigh. She mimics a gravelly voice, what Angus’s grandfather must’ve sounded like: “‘You’re going to do this with a little one on the way, little missy?’” She shook her head.

“How far along—”

Her face twists again.

“Not far at all, do you remember the last—?”

He nods.

“So—” She spreads her hands. “I didn’t think we’d be apart that long, and as soon as he was born and I could travel, I wanted to get started again. And R.B. said, he said he’d take care of Angus as long as I needed, and then….” She looks at him finally, with the fine lines around her mouth and her eyes, her eyes that strange flat grey. “Wonderland, you know? And it went so badly, so much worse than I ever imagined it could be.”

“Yeah.” He reaches a hand across the table, but she pulls back, and he lets her. Anxiety is written across her face in these tiny expressions: the flare of a nostril, the tightness around her mouth, brows crinkled. Now he recognizes it clear as day on her face; she might as well be shouting or weeping aloud. “I can’t imagine, just the two of you— I don’t think we woulda made it if it wasn’t for—” He stops short.

“Thank the gods Barry was there,” she says, her voice raw with relief. She sighs, then, and slumps slightly.

“Hey. Hey don’t,” he says.

She gives him a tight smile as she straightens her spine. 

“In any case, you were asking about Angus. So after Wonderland, I, I, I felt like I couldn’t go back. It seems foolish now, but….”

“Naw, I get it.”

“I realized then, I think, how much longer it was going to take. And I didn't deserve—  _ he _ didn't need to grow up like that, and I trusted, I never would have thought that R.B. would've—”

“Lucky that he did though, right? Kid saved our bacon on that train.”

Her mouth twitches in the start of a smile.

“He did, didn’t he?”

“Kid’s probably smarter than all of us put together, you know that right? Plus, like,” Magnus starts count off on his fingers “he’s trained with your folks as a Seeker, Killian got him even better at that dang crossbow, he spent a year at school with, ugh, Lucas Miller, and now he’s back to magic stuff with—” Magnus stops short. “Boy, huh, yeah.”

She takes a deep breath. “Does he know?” Her tone is curt, matter of fact, but there’s a wariness in her eyes. Magnus thinks of Taako with the half-drunk bottle of bourbon at poker with the guys, unconsciously makes a face. “Ah,” she says. “That’s not going to be a problem, is it?”

“Not for Ango,” he says. She makes a doubtful noise, and this time he does take her hand. It’s almost cold. “‘M serious, Luce. He’s not going to drag Angus into—”

“A little late for that, don’t you think?” Magnus winces, but she continues. “Magnus, dear, he  _ is _ in the middle of all this, has been from the second he came onto the moon.”

He picks up his fork, cuts a bite of steak, and while chewing says, “About that, uh—”

“Why did I hire a 10 year old child for my top secret organization on a fake moon?”

He nods, still chewing.

“Would you believe...clerical error?” she says with a sly smile. He almost spits out the last of his food as he laughs. “But seriously, I had no idea how old he was—or even that it was him—until he just...showed up?” 

Magnus nods thoughtfully. “Sure, sure, yeah, that tracks. And like, once you’ve had that ichor, kinda no going back.”

“Even if I’d wanted to, and I’ll tell you, Magnus, for a hot minute I considered it, just toss the kid in a cannon and shoot him” — she waves a hand — “you know, wherever, but there was no way he wasn’t going to stick with it. He was  _ so excited,  _ you should have seen his face.”

“Really took to it right away, huh?”

“I’m tempted to say something about  _ rushing in,” _ she says, again with that sly smile. He laughs, loud enough that people at other tables look over at them, and he takes her hands in his again. They’re quiet for a long moment like that, until she breaks the silence with a soft laugh. “Magnus, I need my hands back so I can finish my lunch.”

“Nope, mine now.” He pantomimes nibbling at her fingers, and she laughs, the dignified chuckle of the Director dissolving into giggles. Then she raises an eyebrow, and he blushes and abruptly drops her hands. She returns to her salad with a smirk, as he watches her eat. “So. Um. Yeah. Now what?”

She finishes a mouthful and sets down her fork again. “We can’t just— Surely we can’t pick up where we left off.”

He shrugs. “I mean….”

“Seriously, Magnus. How are we— Besides, you and Taako—”

“Mmmm.” He savors the last bit of rice pilaf. “I guess that’s my problem, isn’t it?”

“Magnus.”

“Yeah?”

This time she reaches out a hand to him, resting her fingers lightly on his wrist.

“I don’t want you to court trouble that you don’t—”

“Do you even know me?” he asks, putting a hand over hers. 

“Well, you did say you were bored,” she replies. 

He snorts, and she smiles, slow and sly. He rubs his thumb over the back of her hand. 

“Guess I did. Look, I….” He takes a breath. “I’d like to try.”

She sucks in a breath of her own. “I’d like that too,” is all she says. He smiles, and she smiles back, the tight nervousness unfolding into something warmer, gentler: something familiar, something new.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: "Arby's" comes from the initials RB, for Raffel Brothers, the founders of the chain. [themoreyouknow.gif]


End file.
